Turn the lights OFF!

Maidstone already has shipments of nuclear waste crossing the borough from Dungeoness, and more nuclear power will see this increase further. Given the dangerous and expensive nature of nuclear power, I think that Gordon Brown is mad to give it his backing.

There are no proven methods of long term storage for nuclear waste and yet we learn that taxpayers are expected to foot the bill for storage. Also, the high cost of decommissioning of the nuclear power stations which is to be passed to consumers amounts to a regressive tax that will hit the poor the hardest, people who are already going to suffer with the fuel cost rises announce last week. On top of this is the ridiculously long life of nuclear waste would need to be stored safely for over 200,000 years - how realistic is this?

The government seems to be doing nothing to reduce energy consumption and to protect the vulnerable. They are backing coal power over renewables and Labour talk about 'keeping the lights on' at a time when we should be learning how to turn some of them off. Reducing our energy use in a fair and equitable way is the key to tackling the rising cost of energy and to reducing our impact on the environment, not building more dirty dangerous and expensive nuclear power stations.